Uranium issue could undo N.Korea deal

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By Burt Herman, Associated Press Writer | March 1, 2007

SEOUL, South Korea --It was late 2002 when U.S. officials in the North Korean capital confronted their hosts with intelligence purporting to prove the North was embarking on a program to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs.

The Americans said they were surprised when the secretive North Koreans actually fessed up to their atomic dealings -- although the North since then has never publicly acknowledged doing so and some critics dispute what really was said.

The allegation launched the latest nuclear crisis, with the U.S. and its allies halting aid under an earlier disarmament agreement that they said the North had violated. That prompted North Korea to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and restart its sole functioning atomic reactor, later leading to six-nation talks seeking to get the North out of the nuclear weapons business.

Now, more than four years later and in the wake of the North's nuclear bomb test in October, the communist nation has agreed again to follow the path of disarmament under a Feb. 13 accord with the U.S. and four other countries.

more: http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2007/03/01/uranium_issue_could_undo_nkorea_deal/

U.S. Concedes Uncertainty on North Korean Uranium Effort

Last October, the North Koreans tested their first nuclear device, the fruition of decades of work to make a weapon out of plutonium.

For nearly five years, though, the Bush administration, based on intelligence estimates, has accused North Korea of also pursuing a secret, parallel path to a bomb, using enriched uranium. That accusation, first leveled in the fall of 2002, resulted in the rupture of an already tense relationship: The United States cut off oil supplies, and the North Koreans responded by throwing out international inspectors, building up their plutonium arsenal and, ultimately, producing that first plutonium bomb.

But now, American intelligence officials are publicly softening their position, admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. The result has been new questions about the Bush administration’s decision to confront North Korea in 2002.

“The question now is whether we would be in the position of having to get the North Koreans to give up a sizeable arsenal if this had been handled differently,” a senior administration official said this week.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/washington/01korea.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1172719183-gE12r3NLUpM8ZRgVJY4kHg

North Korea and U.S. Talks Start Process to Mend Ties (Update3)

By Judy Mathewson and Paul Tighe

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- Talks between the U.S. and North Korea next week will start a process aimed at normalizing relations between the countries, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said.

``We will begin the process of addressing our bilateral ties, with the intention of eventual normalization,'' Hill told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. ``I want to emphasize the words `to begin' because we have a lot of bilateral issues we need to talk about.''

The March 5-6 meeting follows up on an agreement the U.S., China, South Korea, Japan and Russia negotiated with North Korea on Feb. 13 that requires the country to scrap its plutonium- based nuclear weapons program in return for energy aid.

Discussions will include the U.S. ending its listing of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and human rights. The meeting marks a shift in U.S. relations with the communist country that President George W. Bush once called part of an ``axis of evil.''

more:http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a__OsEkNSvF0